1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to a multihop network that implements a reactive routing protocol which is used by nodes to continuously adapt resources of the multihop network in response to topology changes in the multihop network so as to optimize the performance of a connection between a source node and a destination node.
2. Description of Related Art
A problem inherent with multihop networks (wireless ad hoc networks) is that they have a topology that changes over time because the nodes are mobile which can lead to a connection breaking between two nodes relaying traffic for a specific connection. There are several other reasons why a topology changes over time in addition to moving nodes. For example, topology changes may occur even without nodes moving such as variations caused by moving objects on which radio waves reflect or changes in the communication media. These topology changes include, for example, channel variations (of own and/or interfering channels), traffic pattern changes, transmit pattern changes and resource allocation changes. To adapt to these topology changes, the multihop networks can employ either a proactive routing protocol or a reactive routing protocol. In multihop networks that employ a proactive routing protocol, the topology changes are typically adapted to by continuously updating the routing paths between the nodes. And, in multihop networks that employ a reactive routing protocol, the routing paths between the nodes are first set up in what is usually denoted the route discovery phase. Once the path setup is complete, the route maintenance phase takes over. This phase is responsible for maintaining paths between active source/destination pairs in the face of topological changes, for example when two nodes on the path towards the destination node have moved apart too far which causes the connection to break then a route repair procedure (part of the route maintenance phase) is invoked as a rescue operation to try and repair the connections between the nodes. If this rescue operation is not successful, then a new route discovery round has to be performed. Examples of reactive routing protocols include AODV (Ad Hoc on Demand Distance Vector) and DSR (Dynamic Source Routing) that were developed within IETFs MANET workgroup are described in the following articles:                C. Perkins, E. M. Royer and S. R. Das, “Ad Hoc On-demand Distance Vector Routing”, RFC 3561, July 2003.        D. Johnson and D. Maltz, “Dynamic Source Routing in Ad Hoc Wireless Networks”, draft-ietf-manet-dsr-09.txt, April 2003.        
The contents of these articles are hereby incorporated by reference herein.
Although these routing protocols generally work well they still have a drawback in which they fail to do enough to optimize the performance of a connection between two nodes. Accordingly, there is a need for a multihop network that implements a new reactive routing protocol which optimizes the performance of a connection between two nodes. This need and other needs are satisfied by the multihop network, node and method of the present invention.